every girl's highest ambition. They not only
worship her, but many of them make real sacrifices to hear her sing;
for most of them are anything but well off, and to hear an opera means
living without little luxuries, and sometimes without necessaries, for
days together. Their devotion to their idol is touching and true; and
she knows it and is good-natured in the matter of autographs for them,
and talks about 'my matinee girls' to the reporters, as if those
eleven thousand virgins and more were all her younger sisters and
nieces. An actress, even the most gifted, has no such 'following.' The
greatest dramatic sopranos that ever sing Brunhilde and Kundry
enjoy no such popularity. It belongs exclusively to the nightingale
primadonnas, whose voices enchant the ear if they do not always
stir the blood. It may be explicable, but no explanation is at all
necessary, since the fact cannot be disputed.

To this amazing popularity Margaret Donne had now attained; and she
was known to the matinee girls' respectful admiration as Madame
Cordova, to the public generally and to her comrades as Cordova, to
sentimental paragraph-writers as Fair Margaret, and to her friends as
Miss Donne, or merely as Margaret. Indeed, from the name each person
gave her in speaking of her, it was easy to know the class to which
each belonged.

She had bought a house in London, because in her heart she still
thought England the finest country in the world, and had never felt
the least desire to live anywhere else. She had few relations left and
none whom she saw; for her father, the Oxford scholar, had not had
money, and they all looked with disapproval on the career she had
chosen. Besides, she had been very little in England since her
parents' death. Her mother's American friend, the excellent Mrs.
Rushmore, who had taken her under her wing, was now in Versailles,
where she had a house, and Margaret actually had the audacity to live
alone, rather than burden herself with a tiresome companion.

Her courage in doing so was perhaps mistaken, considering what the
world is and what it generally thinks of the musical and theatrical
professions; and Mrs. Rushmore, who was quite powerless to influence
Margaret's conduct, did not at all approve of it. The girl's will had
always been strong, and her immense success had so little weakened
her belief in herself, or softened her character, that she had grown
almost too independent. The spirit of independence is n